An activist who was using his position on Colorado’s oil and gas task force to push for a New York-style ban on oil and natural gas development has given up on the fringe proposal for lack of support, according to documents released by state officials overnight. The proposal’s demise is yet another defeat for national anti-fracking groups in Colorado, such as Food and Water Watch and the Sierra Club, which are desperately trying to reboot their failed campaign for an effective statewide oil and gas development ban. It’s also a reminder of how outside of New York, the “ban fracking”...

Last week the Senate, with votes from Democrats and Republicans, passed long-stalled Keystone XL pipeline legislation. President Obama is planning on vetoing the legislation despite broad support from lawmakers and the American people. In the meantime, the Saudis are doing everything they can to undermine U.S. domestic oil production and far-left eco-fascist groups like the Sierra Club are loving it. Washington Free Beacon's Lachlan Markay has the details:Â Saudi ArabiaÂ’s efforts to Â“drownÂ” American energy producers make the oil-rich theocracy a crucial ally of the environmentalist movement, according to a leading green group. The House of Saud, the kingdomÂ’s royal family,...

Executives at a Bermudan firm funneling money to U.S. environmentalists run investment funds with Russian tycoons. A shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. One of those executives, Nicholas Hoskins, is a director at a hedge fund management firm that has invested heavily in Russian oil and gas. He is also senior counsel at the Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin and the vice president...

After the discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, it didnt take long for environmentalists to cry gloom and doom and for the media to hype those claims. From caribou dying to earthquakes to all hell breaking loose, there was no shortage of catastrophic predictions though the Alaska pipeline now boasts great success roughly 30 years later. Construction on the pipeline began in 1975, and oil first moved through it on June 20, 1977. Former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton summed up its success in 2003 that Today the pipeline produces 17 percent of our domestic petroleum. It...

On Christmas Eve in 1914, famed naturalist John Muir lay in a Los Angeles hospital bed, taking his last few breaths. A prolific nature writer and passionate preservationist, the 74-year-old spent his final moments racked with pneumonia, hundreds of miles from the 17-room Martinez Edwardian mansion he called home. A century later, Muir’s former residence — now the John Muir National Historic Site — is where national park staffers and about 30 Muir enthusiasts gathered on a gray Christmas Eve morning to mark the passing of the man who co-founded the Sierra Club and preserved Yosemite and other natural park...

Environmentalists say they’ve moved past their 19th century patron saint John Muir because he represents the monied, white privilege that continues to haunt the environmental movement to this day, the Los Angeles Times reports. In an effort to connect more with Latinos and African Americans, some environmentalists are considering ditching Muir as their intellectual godfather. Environmentalists say that while they respect his ideas, they represent rich, Anglo-Saxon values that likely alienate minority communities. “Muir’s legacy has to go,” Jon Christensen, a historian at the University of California in Los Angeles’s Institute of Environment and Sustainability, told the Times. “It’s just...

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled the design of California's new quarter Monday, which shows conservationist John Muir, a California condor and Yosemite National Park's Half Dome mountain on the coin's tails side.</p>
<p>The quarter commemorates California's Sept. 9, 1850, entry into the United States, and is the 31st 25-cent coin to be unveiled as part of a 10-year, 50-state quarters program conducted by the U.S. Mint. States reveal their quarters in honor of the order in which they ratified the U.S. Constitution and joined the union.</p>

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Tribal and environmental groups are suing the U.S. State Department for approving a temporary plan by a Canadian pipeline company to increase the flow of crude oil from Alberta into Minnesota. The Sierra Club and other groups filed the federal lawsuit. The suit contends the State Department approved a plan by Enbridge Energy to construct and operate a pipeline that crosses the U.S.-Canada border without first reviewing environmental impacts. Enbridge won Minnesota regulatory approval to complete a $200 million upgrade of its 1,000-mile Alberta Clipper pipeline, boosting its flow by adding pumping stations

The EPA and environmental groups are exceptionally close for a government agency and lobby groups, with a revolving door and pressure from the groups often shaping EPA’s policies, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group based on emails obtained in a yearslong battle with the agency. The report, which details what the Energy & Environment Legal Institute terms “collusion” between the Environmental Protection Agency and eco-friendly groups, is also a study in the way E&E; used open records laws to force transparency on a secretive agency. Chris Horner, the report’s author, said the emails show EPA officials...

The federal government is spending nearly $1 million to create an online database that will track “misinformation” and hate speech on Twitter. ... “This service could mitigate the diffusion of false and misleading ideas, detect hate speech and subversive propaganda [?], and assist in the preservation of open debate,” the grant said. ... “Truthy” claims to be non-partisan. However, the project’s lead investigator Filippo Menczer proclaims his support for numerous progressive advocacy groups, including President Barack Obama’s Organizing for Action, Moveon.org, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, and True Majority. ... The government-funded researchers hope that the public will use...

Backgrounder: The Students for Justice in PalestinePosted By Lee Kaplan On July 17, 2014 @ 12:35 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 4 Comments The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) today exists as a consortium of campus Â“clubsÂ” throughout the American and Canadian college systems which work to oppose the existence of Israel and to promote Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Jewish state. There are at least 80 chapters of these clubs on campuses throughout the US and Canada. The SJP goes under other assorted names on some campuses. Names such as Palestine Solidarity Committee or Students for...

1) What do you make of the extension of the comment period for federal agencies to Keystone XL? President Obama said he would take his time to make a considered decision whether or not to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and that appears to be exactly what he's doing. 2) The State Department wrote in a recent report that even if the pipeline isn’t built, the oil will still be exported by other means. So, is protesting the pipeline fruitless? Not at all. 3) For many, the debate on Keystone comes down to jobs. The presence of a pipeline will...

Jared Polis really doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. If you saw the Colorado congressman speaking on the House floor last month wearing a clip-on bowtie with a polo shirt under his blazer, you know what I’m talking about. He’s been this way since he first emerged on the scene. About 10 years ago, when he was just 28, Polis was one of four wealthy Colorado Democrats who pooled their considerable personal resources to create a state-of-the-art political machine that was ruthlessly effective in turning this once-red heartland state a stunning shade of blue. But Polis wouldn’t run with that...

There are many environmental reasons to eat insects. But first you have to get past the ick factor. You have to be careful not to overcook scorpions. The exoskeleton traps steam, and they're messy when they pop. "But get it right," said "Bug Chef" David George Gordon to the swarm of curious faces gathered to watch him work, "and they taste like soft-shell crab." It was Halloween night. I'd trekked across Portland, Oregon, for a bug-cooking demonstration at Paxton Gate, a store that owner Andy Brown describes as "a natural history museum where everything is for sale." Feats of...

Sierra Club San Diego Chapter suspended The Sierra Club’s national board voted Friday to suspend its San Diego chapter for four years, a step that leaders said was needed to curb “ongoing conflicts and divisions” among local activists. “We have one objective, having a healthy, effective, working Sierra Club chapter in San Diego,” Sierra Club President Dave Scott said after the vote, saying the board had received many complaints about strife within the chapter. The organization’s leaders have provided few details about the nature of that conflict, but San Diego members and former officials attributed it to the Sierra Club’s...

....I recently received an email from the Sierra Club praising the President’s State of the Union speech in which he claimed that climate change—by which they mean global warming—is real and that the science is “settled.” No, the science entirely refutes it—except if one means that the climate has always been a state of change. The most recent climate change is seventeen years of cooling that has gifted us with record-breaking cold as far south as Florida.

Among Washington's most important but rarely covered realities is the daily close coordination among Democratic politicians, executive branch bureaucrats and the left side of the non-profit activism community. Emails obtained recently through a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute exposed a slice of that coordination in the campaign to stop construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The emails show, according to Fox News correspondent John Roberts, "senior policy officials at the EPA working closely with environmental groups in what appears to be an effort to kill the pipeline."...

'Secret Dealing'? Emails Show Cozy Relationship Between EPA, Environmental Groups By John Roberts Published January 22, 2014 FoxNews.com Newly disclosed emails suggest senior policy officials at the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental groups are working closely to kill the Keystone XL pipeline, critics say. "These damning emails make it clear that the Obama administration has been actively trying to stop this important project for years," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who has long advocated for the Canada-to-Texas pipeline's construction, said in a statement to Fox News. The emails were obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Energy and...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and 39 fellow Republicans are attempting to use a rarely used legislative tactic to block planned Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas standards that would limit the amount of carbon new power plants can emit. The Kentucky senator filed a formal resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, a rarely used provision that allows Congress to block executive branch regulations that Congress considers onerous. The EPA rules were published in the Federal Register last week. "Kentucky is facing a real crisis here," McConnell said Thursday in introducing the disapproval motion. Regulations imposed by the Obama...

Recently, The New American has reported on the efforts by radio talk show host Mark Levin and others to push for a constitutional convention (a convention of the states, in the parlance of the proponents). In his new book, Levin argues that such a convention is the last hope “to reform the federal government from its degenerate, bloated, imperial structure back to its (smaller) republican roots.” Unfortunately, many otherwise well-educated and well-meaning conservatives have succumbed to Levin’s siren song and they have gone so far as to deny the constitutionality of nullification and to insist that an Article V convention...

When is the Correct Time to Burn Fallen Trees? Has the forest benefitted from government interference with Mother Nature? When the government does not allow the forest to burn off naturally the result is uncontrollable fires in the future. I think they may be a correlation between all misguided government endeavors and the outcomes. The government interferes with the natural order of the economy and the economy remains broken. The government interferes with the world’s absolutely finest most advanced health care delivery system and chaos results. The government attempts to correct poverty results in more poverty. The government borrows money...

Massive storms dumped “biblical rainfall amounts” across nearly 2,000 square miles of Colorado last month, according to the National Weather Service. The raging floods that followed killed at least eight people, damaged or destroyed nearly 2,000 homes, and wrecked more than 200 miles of state highways and 50 state bridges. The Denver Post ran a front page aerial photo headlined, “Front Range Flooding: Oil spilling into mix,” showing a trashed stream bed with brown stains near a “damaged tank” that “leaks crude.” Opportunistic flocks of Big Green eco-vultures already embroiled in five local anti-fracking ballot measures pounced on the tragedy...

Colorado - The Gilmore case attracted national attention because he supported demonstrations at an Occupy Wall Street encampment a block away from where the fire was started. Occupy activists were protesting against economic inequality and government policies favoring the wealthy. The early-morning fire caused an estimated $10 million damage to a four-story apartment complex under construction and the occupied Penny Flats condominium and retail building next door.

Rubin rose before Chief U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Portland, where she pleaded guilty to a dozen crimes – in Colorado, Oregon and California – as part of the underground Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front. ... Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen F. Peifer recounted Rubin's crimes as part of the largest group of eco-saboteurs ever taken down by the FBI. They called themselves The Family and committed an estimated $40 million in damage from 1996 to 2001. ... the terms of the highly structured plea agreement sets limits on the number of years Rubin will spend in prison....

As the 2013 season of devastating wildfires continues to rage across the American West, the question of arson as a form of major terrorism is again being raised. Already this year, 35,440 reported fires have burned a total of 3.9 million acres, with a quarter-million acres scorched the iconic Yosemite National Park. Large blazes continue to burn in several states, with six alive in Idaho, five each in California and Montana, and one each in Alaska, Louisiana, Oregon, Texas and Washington. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, says at this time last year, 45,278 fires had burned 7.9...

The Obama administration is poised to rescind a little-known emissions exemption for power plants as it seeks to address climate change. Green groups are pressuring the Environmental Protection Agency to finalize a rule that would force utilities to limit emissions when power plants are shutting down, starting up or malfunctioning. Those emissions had previously been exempted from regulations because they were not considered a part of “normal operations,” but the EPA says that policy is now “outdated.” The environmental group Sierra Club held rallies last week near two facilities that would be affected by the end of the exemption and...

Maine man badly injured in Torngat Mountains National Park. A U.S. hiker vividly recalls the night one of his fellow campers was pulled from his tent and attacked by a polar bear in Torngat Mountains National Park in northern Labrador. Matt Dyer, a lawyer from Maine, was badly injured during the attack at around 1:30 a.m. AT on July 24. Richard Eisenberg was with Dyer and six other hikers as part of a Sierra Club hiking trip to the remote park. He said the group woke up to the sounds of Dyer screaming as he was dragged from his tent....

Rising ocean waters. Bigger and more frequent forest fires. More brutally hot summer days. These aren't the usual predictions about global warming based on computer forecasts. They're changes already happening in California, according to a detailed new report issued Thursday by the California Environmental Protection Agency. Climate change is "an immediate and growing threat" affecting the state's water supplies, farm industry, forests, wildlife and public health, the report says. The 258-page document was written by 51 scientists from the University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,...

Nineteen firefighters died fighting a forest fire in Arizona earlier this summer. Curiously, almost no one is talking about why it happened, only that it was a tragedy. Arizona Deputy State Forestry Director Jerry Payne has been the only one to speak out about the cause, and he backtracked immediately afterwards, apologizing for what he said. He claimed that the superintendent of the Granite Mountain Hotshots violated wildlife safety protocols while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30th, 2013, 60 miles north of Phoenix. According to Payne, the superintendent’s violations allegedly included not knowing the location of the fire,...

It was the kind of meeting that conspiratorial conservative bloggers dream about. A month after President Barack Obama won reelection, top brass from three dozen of the most powerful groups in liberal politics met at the headquarters of the National Education Association (NEA), a few blocks north of the White House. Brought together by the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Communication Workers of America (CWA), and the NAACP, the meeting was invite-only and off-the-record. Despite all the Democratic wins in November, a sense of outrage filled the room as labor officials, environmentalists, civil rights activists, immigration reformers, and a panoply of other...

A former top aide to then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is at the center of a controversy over a suspended federal water-conservation program. Rebecca R. Wodder, a senior advisor to the Interior Secretary on rivers, declined to appear before the House Natural Resources Committee Wednesday afternoon. As the hearing began, a white placard bearing Wodder’s name in black type was placed at the eastern end of a mahogany table and in front of an empty chair. “Unfortunately, the Department will be unable to send a witness to the hearing,” committee spokeswoman Mallory Micetich said an Interior Department official told the committee....

Biotechnology giant Monsanto is scrapping plans to win approval to grow new types of genetically modified crops in the European Union. It says the move is due to the lack of prospects for cultivation in the EU... It comes just days after the EU began talks with the US on a wide-ranging trade deal, with agriculture likely to be one of the toughest issues. The company said it would now concentrate on growing its conventional seeds business in Europe. It will also look to get EU approval to import its genetically modified crop varieties from the US and South America...

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and the attorneys general of 11 other states sued the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday, demanding that the agency turn over documents the states allege will show the agency cooperates with environmental groups as part of a "sue and settle" legal strategy to develop regulations. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, alleges that binding consent decrees between the EPA and environmental groups that have sued the agency over the years have led to new rules and regulations for states without allowing their attorneys general to defend their interests and those of its...

Having grown up on a farm in California’s San Joaquin Valley, I have seen firsthand how environmental extremists smashed a flourishing agricultural region. Citing the need to protect a three-inch baitfish called the Delta smelt, green activists succeeded in getting farmers’ water supplies drastically cut. As some of the world’s most productive soil degenerated into a drought-stricken landscape, farmers — some of whose families had worked these lands for generations — packed up and left. The local economy sank, with unemployment in the Valley now doubling the national average. President Obama’s recent speech unveiling his “new national climate action plan”...

Policy Missouri Right to Life does not support any organization that in its statements or in practice manifests anti-life positions on abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, or cloning. Missouri Right to Life urges citizens to consider carefully whether to support such organizations. Explanation Anti-life positions are manifested by organizations that are not directly involved in anti-life activities. Examples include, but are by no means limited to, such organizations as the American Bar Association (ABA Policy on Legislative and National Issues: Abortion [adopted August, 1992], available at http://www.abanet.org/policy/Ch-13greenbook2009-10.pdf), the Sierra Club (“[T]he Sierra Club is a pro-choice organization that...

GM foods are banned from restaurants in the Houses of Parliament despite government claims it is ‘probably safer’ than other meals. Government ministers are demanding that ordinary families should abandon their reluctance to eat genetically modified food, however they are banned from MPs’ plates. This week the food and farming secretary, Owen Paterson, launched an extraordinary propaganda campaign to encourage the nation to accept GM crops and farming. He bolstered his campaign with claims that some seven million children in the Far East could have been saved from blindness or death in the last 15 years if only people had...

Is Big Green running things in President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency? Wake up and smell the corruption. A virulent 2009 sue-and-settle lawsuit, WildEarth Guardians v. Jackson (as in Lisa Jackson, former EPA administrator) is an outrageous sweetheart deal rife with collusion and manipulation to create arbitrary regulations, along with the EPA takeover of state regulatory programs and a price tag of more than $2.5 billion -- all aimed against the domestic fossil fuel industry.

To paraphrase William Shakespeare, there’s something rotten in Washington, and the odor is emanating not just from the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department. It’s also coming from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies accused of colluding with radical environmental groups to write regulations that are threatening the livelihoods of millions of Americans. A U.S. Chamber of Commerce study has found that the EPA has given green groups a seat at the table when drafting environmental regulations, but it has excluded the people and industries most likely to be affected. The Sierra Club has participated in “closed-door...

In a news cycle where the lack of transparency is revealed daily, it is refreshing when something previously opaque exposes its true motives. Such is the case for the Sierra Club and its desire to block oil and gas drilling. I’ve written many times on environmental groups’ influence over use of public lands and how they often use claims of some endangered flora or fauna as cover for their efforts to block any beneficial economic development, such as mineral extraction or agricultural activity. They cry about some critter when in fact it is really about control—control of public lands.

Few issues divide Democrats more than energy policy, as we've learned as unions and environmentalists fight over the Keystone XL pipeline. More evidence now comes from California, where greens have lost an attempt to ban oil and gas hydraulic fracturing. Democratic leaders brought their fracking moratorium bill to the Assembly floor last week, and their rank and file revolted. The bill lost 37-24, with 12 Democrats joining 25 Republicans to defeat it. Another 18 Democrats abstained, and it's a good bet they were "no" votes who didn't want to publicly cross their leadership. This was a rare rout of the...

On Memorial Day weekend, 2 million people marched in protests against seed giant Monsanto for the purpose of bringing awareness to hazards from genetically modified food, which it and other companies manufacture. Organizer Tami Canal said protests were held in 436 cities in 52 countries. Genetically modified plants are grown from genetically modified, or engineered, seeds, which are created to resist insecticides and herbicides so that crops can be grown to withstand a weed-killing pesticide or integrate a bacterial toxin that can ward off pests. The Chicago Tribune reported that because genetically modified organisms are not listed on food or...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Protesters rallied in dozens of cities Saturday as part of a global protest against seed giant Monsanto and the genetically modified food it produces, organizers said. Organizers said "March Against Monsanto" protests were held in 52 countries and 436 cities, including Los Angeles where demonstrators waved signs that read "Real Food 4 Real People" and "Label GMOs, It's Our Right to Know."… The U.S. Senate this week overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would allow states to require labeling of genetically modified foods.

Currently on the front burner of scandals in the Obama administration are Benghazi, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeting of conservative groups, and the AP scandal. Of course, Fast and Furious is also still very much alive. However, over the past week, two more scandals are coming to light and may be just as big as the others. One of those involves the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Congressional Republicans are accusing the agency of giving unfair preference to environmental groups when it comes to information requests. They are comparing the behavior to that of the IRS in giving additional scrutiny...

Genetic engineering in agriculture has disappointed many people who once had hopes for it. Excluding, of course, those who’ve made money from it, appropriately represented in the public’s mind by Monsanto. That corporation, or at least its friends, recently managed to have an outrageous rider slipped into the 587-page funding bill Congress sent to President Obama.[1] The rider essentially prohibits the Department of Agriculture from stopping production of any genetically engineered crop once it’s in the ground, even if there is evidence that it is harmful.

Tax could provide cover for approval of oil sands pipelineHello Canada! Are you ready — ready for a new national tax on carbon that will ding pocketbooks across the country? My bet is that a new carbon tax is coming, made almost inevitable by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s full-bore push to secure Washington’s approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.For early clues on the carbon tax/Keystone trade-off, tune in Tuesday night to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. As the president speaks, he will be alert to the chorus of Hollywood stars, environmental activists, editorial writers and industry leaders...

A large global warming protest with a very Canadian connection is scheduled for Sunday February 17th at the White House. The protest, organized by the Sierra Club and 350.org, is being dubbed as the biggest climate rally in U.S. history and is meant to encourage President Obama to veto the construction of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry oil from northern Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico. In a telephone interview with Yahoo! Canada News, 350.org's Daniel Kessler said that he is expecting tens of thousands of people including "several groups" from Canada. Obama is expected to...

<p>Lawyer and environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and 47 other Sierra Club members were arrested Wednesday after tying themselves to the White House gate to protest the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.</p>
<p>Proving the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, RFK Jr.’s son Conor Kennedy was also cuffed. The last we heard about the 18-year-old Kennedy scion was when he was wrapping his arms around his then-girlfriend Taylor Swift last summer.</p>

The fuel industry's American Petroleum Institute tested the 15 percent ethanol gas approved in 2010 and found it gums up fuel systems, prompts "check engine" lights to come on, and messes with fuel gauge readings. "Failure of these components could result in breakdowns that leave consumers stranded on busy roads and highways," said the industry report. Worse: API said the fuel problems--not found in E5 or E10 blends--aren't always covered by auto warranties. The industry prefers pure fuel to an ethanol mix, but the report isn't likely to slow the administrations green push

The Sierra Club has announced its approval for a "one-time" use of civil disobedience. The civil disobedience is intended to step up their efforts to oppose the Keystone pipeline. Many of the other groups opposing Keystone have been engaging in civil disobedience as a tactic, including arson-based ecoterrorism. This will be the first time in the Sierra Club's history that they have approved violating the law.